Kiddstein

They do other covers too, but the Rammstein covers are special.

Stupidopedia

Wikipedia is under a censorship attack by a convicted murderer who is invoking Germany’s privacy laws in a bid to remove references to his killing of a Bavarian actor in 1990. Yes, let's respect his rights. Too bad the Germans don't have as much respect for not killing people.

Lawyers for Wolfgang Werle sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding removal of Werle’s name from the Wikipedia entry on actor Walter Sedlmayr. The lawyers cite German court rulings that “have held that our client’s name and likeness cannot be used anymore in publication regarding Mr. Sedlmayr’s death.” Even though he was found guilty of killing him.

German media have already ceased using Werle’s full name regarding the attack. Jennifer Granick, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says German publications must also alter their online archives in a bid to comport with laws designed to provide offenders an avenue to “reintegrate back into society.” She added, “It’s not just censorship going forward. It’s asking outlets to go back and change what is already being written. Go for it Germany! See what you can do about that pesky World War II and that Holocaust stuff while you're at it.

It’s not the first time Wikipedia, has been targeted by would-be censors. And it likely won’t be the last. The site went offline overseas for a day in last December, as British censors blacklisted it over an entry on the German rock band Scorpions. The entry included the cover art of the Scorpions’ 1976 Virgin Killer album, which depicts a nude young girl. Yeah, those prurient Brits, who like their women naked on page three of their papers, not on decades old album art on the interweb.

Werle's lawyer said, “Our client has served 15 years of his life sentence for murdering Mr. Sedlmayr in 1990. He has been released on parole in August 2007. His rehabilitation and his future life outside the prison system is severely impacted by your unwillingness to anonymize any articles dealing with the murder of Mr. Sedlmayr with regard to our client’s involvement,” according to the demands, which also ask for legal fees and compensation for “emotional suffering.” Wikipedia did not respond for comment, but should with a giant FUCK YOU.

Granick said the First Amendment protects San Francisco-based Wikipedia. But it could find itself in the same position as Yahoo, which has been fined millions by a French court for allowing users to auction Nazi paraphernalia, which is illegal in France. In that case, Yahoo asked the American courts to intervene. So far, the U.S. courts have refrained, because France has not moved to collect the fine.

Chimp Chomp

Another in our series of "don't fuck with mother nature" stories...

The director of the Berlin Zoo made famous by the polar bear cub Knut has had his finger bitten off by a chimpanzee called Pedro. Sure, it's ethnic sounding, but his full name is Pedro Marciano Thor Mohammed Hwang O'Brien Schlutz.

Bernhard Blaszkiewitz (55, and now nine fingered) was feeding Pedro walnuts as he showed a visitor round the zoo Monday when the ape grabbed his hand and bit off his right index finger. Guess who's still getting laid tonight, although I think a sympathy hump was not the plan.

"Pedro is the boss of the group so he has to demonstrate a certain dominance in it to prove himself," a zoo spokesman said. "Under normal circumstances, a chimp would never have the chance to reach a keeper or our director." But under abnormal circumstances, it's all kinds of dangerous there. Given the disregard for rules and safety, we can expect Pedro to have a trophy necklace of fingers and ears in no time!

Doctors sewed Blaszkiewitz's finger back on but said it was not clear if the operation would be successful. Well, at least the reattachment part. Keepers said the incident would have no repercussions for the 28-year-old Pedro, because really, he's a monkey, and you don't punish the animal acting on natural instinct. If you punish anyone, it's Blaszkiewitz - sew the finger on backwards or something.

Coke Bull

Hong Kong officials say they have found traces of cocaine in cans of Red Bull, a few days after Taiwanese authorities confiscated close to 18,000 cases of the popular energy drink - and you can bet they're going to keep it for themselves!

Officials at the Centre for Food Safety said a laboratory analysis found tiny amounts of the drug in samples of "Red Bull Cola," "Red Bull Sugar-free" and "Red Bull Energy Drink". The drink has now been taken off the shelves of major supermarkets, a spokesman said, and added that the amount of cocaine found in the drinks posed little health danger. But damn if they didn't make the drink better. Red Bull moved quickly to deny the findings and said independent tests on the same batch of drinks had found no traces of cocaine.

Yet this comes on the heel's of last week's discovery of trace amounts of coca leaf in Red Bull Cola, resulting in six German states banning the drink. According to authorities, the substance requires the beverage to be classified as a narcotic, requiring a license for sale. (Of course, even Coca-Cola didn't become entirely cocaine-free until 1929.)

Red Bull said coca leaf extracts were used worldwide as a natural flavouring, and that its own tests had found no traces of cocaine. The illegal cocaine alkaloid - one of 10 found in coca and representing only 0.8% of the plant's chemical make-up - is chemically removed before use, as mandated by international anti-narcotics agencies. "There is no scientific basis for this ban on Red Bull Cola because the levels of cocaine found are so small," Fritz Soergel, the head of the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in Nuremberg, Bavaria, told Time magazine. "And it's not even cocaine itself. According to the tests we carried out, it's a non-active degradation product with no effect on the body. If you start examining lots of other drinks and food so carefully, you'd find a lot of surprising things."

Red Bull's Asia Pacific marketing director, Daniel Beatty, said the firm strongly disputed the findings. "It would have been absolutely impossible for the Hong Kong or any other authorities to have found traces of cocaine in Red Bull Energy Drink," he said in a statement, and then brushed away some mysterious white substance from his nose. "We expect the Hong Kong authorities to recognize their error soon," he said, adding the firm's representatives were already meeting with Taiwanese authorities to point out the error (possibly with a monetary suggestion).

Meanwhile, Taiwanese authorities ordered the drinks to be removed from shelves pending further investigation.

Craziness x 3

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It Should Have Been Baby Gouda

A pregnant German woman rushed to the hospital to give birth shocked doctors and staff when it was revealed that what she had passed off as a fetus for months was in fact a large block of cheese.

Around 4 am, the woman was heard complaining loudly of severe pains outside an apartment building. Neighbors, assuming that she was in labor, took her to an emergency room where doctors uncovered a sodden and moldy mass of what they later determined to be several bricks of cheddar cheese bound together with twine.

The woman, whom hospital administrators have refused to identify due to confidentiality rules, has a history of mental illness, according to medical records obtained from people close to the situation. Not only has she been detained in the past for public disturbances, but she has been on significant doses of anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medications for many years. One attending doctor, speaking on the condition that they remain anonymous, remarked that it is not uncommon for some individuals to fake medical conditions in order to gain attention and financial support. Using cheese to fake a pregnancy, however, seems to be unprecedented, even among the mentally ill. This begs the question "Could the insane properly cater a wine and cheese tasting party?".

“Beyond weird,” remarked the doctor. “I don’t know how one would do it, but it must take an unwordly level of self deception to even conceive of something like this.” Or the warm comfort of cheese slowly melting from inside. What’s more, the woman had apparently registered herself at several stores for an upcoming baby shower and had been regularly consulting an obstretician by phone. Yes, the pregnancy-checkup-by-phone option isn't at all odd. With so much contact with others, it is unclear how she was able to keep from revealing herself for so long...unless her neighbors are total idiots. According to sources familiar with the matter, all of her neighbors believed her to be pregnant, and had helped her pay her rent and shop for baby clothes and furniture.

Residents of the apartment building refused to comment, and the woman has been detained pending further psychiatric evaluation.

Planet Japan, You've Been Served

Method Acting

Daniel Hoevels was unaware he was going to miss the curtain call while performing a suicide scene in "Mary Shelly" being performed in Vienna.

Instead of pretending to cut his own throat with a prop knife, the actor used a real knife that ended up slicing through his skin, just missing his carotid artery, while he was performing a suicide scene on stage. Hoevel was rushed to a hospital for emergency treatment, where doctors confirmed, "Just a little bit deeper and he would have been drowning in his own blood". Oh, those Germans! They have such an intense way of even delivering their acessements.

It's unclear whether someone was trying to kill Hoevels or whether the crew just forgot to dull the knife's blade. Needless to say, I imagine he is not to pleased with the prop girl.

You can read the original German if you want...

Wie gefährlich Kunst sein kann, demonstrierte jetzt ein Schauspieler am Wiener Burgtheater: In einer Selbstmord-Szene des Schiller-Stückes „Maria Stuart“ hat sich der Darsteller Daniel Hoevels mit einem Messer am Hals verletzt. Ihm sei bei dem Gastspiel des Hamburger Thalia Theaters am vergangenen Samstagabend versehentlich ein echtes Messer statt einer unscharfen Requisite mit auf die Bühne gegeben worden, teilte das Burgtheater am Mittwoch mit.

Da das ursprüngliche Theatermesser kaputt gewesen sei, wurde ein neues Klappmesser gekauft. Allerdings vergaß die zuständige Requisiteurin, es stumpf zu machen, berichtet die "Bild"-Zeitung. Auf dem Messer habe sogar noch das Preisschild geklebt. Ohne dies zu wissen, setzte Hoevels das Messer an seine Kehle und zog sich eine tiefe Schnittwunde zu. Blutend wankte er von der Bühne und wurde von einem Notarzt ins Krankenhaus gebracht.

"Hätte der Schauspieler mit dem Messer nur ein wenig fester aufgedrückt oder gar eine Arterie erwischt, wäre er vermutlich auf der Bühne verblutet", zitierte die Zeitung "Österreich" einen behandelnden Arzt. Hoevels wurde ambulant versorgt und stand bereits am Sonntag wieder auf der Bühne.

"Mir geht es schon wieder gut. Bei dieser Szene werde ich aber mein ganzes Berufsleben lang ein mulmiges Gefühl haben", sagte Daniel Hoevels der "Bild"-Zeitung.

Chocochristo

Germany's churches criticized a businessman for selling thousands of Jesus chocolates. This from the country that virtually created the kinky shit and piss video market.

Frank Oynhausen set up his "Sweet Lord" chocolate Jesus-making business saying he wanted to restore some traditional religious values to Christmas in Germany. But the German Protestant Church criticized the idea as "tasteless" and the Roman Catholic Church was not amused. I guess the church doesn't like anyone other than their priests trying to put Jesus in people's mouths.

"I started thinking about how I could reintroduce traditional religious values into this commercial world," said Oynhausen, who had been unemployed since losing a recycling business two years ago. Together with a friend, a local chocolatier, Oynhausen developed the concept of "Sweet Lord." It is growing fast in his home town of Duisburg. Oynhausen said thousands of people have put in orders for the figures wrapped in gold foil.

But church associations expressed dismay. "It is terrible that Jesus is being wrapped up in gold foil and sold along with chocolate bunnies, edible penguins and lollipops," said Aegidius Engel, a spokesman for the archbishopric of nearby Paderborn. "This is ruining the symbol of Jesus himself," he added. Because Jesus should be naked, bloody, and nailed to a cross - the tasteful way.

Oynhausen is now custom-producing the chocolate Jesus figures, but by Easter he hopes to have a partnership with a mass producer. "We're hoping to be able to export them around the world one day," Oynhausen said. He reckons there are parts of the United States where they will be especially popular. Yes, even Germans know we are a country of fat, sweet eating god lovers.

Chocolate Haze

Police closed down a Berlin sweet shop after discovering the owner was selling chocolates and lollipops laced with hallucinogenic mushrooms and marijuana. Considering how much Godiva goes for, what's wrong with getting a little extra oomph for your money?

The owner of the shop in the trendy east Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, an area known for its vibrant night life, was taken into custody on suspicion of drug-dealing, and minor count of catering to Euro-trash.

"In the shop we found 120 pieces of magic mushroom chocolate and countless cannabis lollipops," said police, who confiscated around 70 sachets containing various drugs, about 20 marijuana joints, a range of pills and some jars of drug-laced honey. To me, that's killing two bird with one getting stoned - sweets and drug go pretty well together.

Police said one customer, who appeared intoxicated, was arrested after trying to buy a bag of hallucinogenic mushrooms from an officer in the shop. And where's the problem with that? Those things taste nasty as shit - anything to make them more pleasant is a blessing. Psychoactive candy products should be legal in Germany - there are prominent American businessmen pictured here who have made a good fortune tripping kids out and giving them a sugar rush